


A Sorry Sight for Sore Eyes

by Roald_Seth



Category: Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
Genre: Comedy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-23 23:29:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21328453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roald_Seth/pseuds/Roald_Seth
Summary: Roland lost something that would make his life much more difficult to live without; Adil, seeing that it was causing Roland to become worse for wear, lent him some fresh eyes to assist him in the search. The two give it one more go and, in unexpected places, find a little bit more than what they were initially looking for.
Relationships: Adil/Roland
Kudos: 4





	A Sorry Sight for Sore Eyes

“I don’t know where they could be. They’re always in the same three spots.”

Rarely, if ever, Roland raised his voice. The sentences crackled as they trailed off in a tizzy; Adil merely a spectator than its recipient since Roland’s attention was focused his wooden nightstand. Now, to Roland, it was just a vague brown shape void of its fine details because they blurred into each other and its outline. When he glanced over, Adil was slightly more in focus, standing a few paces away, but the apartment being ill lit did not work to his favor. A single ceiling lamp, the fixture over the cooking stove, which was not even turned on, and a desk lamp on the nightstand was as much as there was for lighting, casting many shadows that just blurred shapes even more so.

Adil counted on his fingers to keep track of where it could be as he ran through the options in his head. Spot One was obviously on Roland’s person, Spot Two was unquestionably on the nightstand, and Spot Three was most likely on the desk in the war room—or somewhere in the war room in general at least. Simple and decisive conclusions: not wrong, yet not entirely correct either.

Whenever asked about the last place he remembered having them, Roland’s answer staggered like the way his gait would when he downed five drinks too many, and Adil knew this since he was the one who had been doing the asking. But, after considerable thought and hesitation, his curiosity and stupidity got the better of him.

“You shower with your glasses on?” he asked.

On queue the question made Roland look as if all of the mysteries of the universe had been posed to him; Adil could practically hear the static. But, at least, it threw Roland through such a loop that it completely expelled any and all anxiety or tension of having lost them in the first place, however brief it might be. His face and shoulders relaxed to transfer that needless energy into processing that possibility like a dial-up computer trying to connect to the Internet while a landline was in use.

“Alright, they’re always in the same four spots,” Roland answered, “but before you ask: I’ve looked in all of those spots… multiple times.”

Not long before, Roland had been pacing back and forth in haste between points of interest, but Adil would not have considered it looking. Except: it was not the first day Roland had been without his glasses. It was merely the first day Adil was around to witness it. The day prior Roland had scoured through every inch of his living quarters for hours—which was not much since underground housing was as extensive as a studio apartment—before scuttling over to and through areas of Lokapala association, and even then some more odd places afterwards on top of those ones, the public baths included.

Adil—unsure how to reassure Roland with words since his past tries either missed the mark or made it worse—met him with a pat to his shoulder and rubbed his hand back and forth against the yoke of Roland’s coat. Roland slowly shook his head in accordance with it. After a few shakes, he closed his eyes and started to massage his forehead with his fingers, while sometimes pressing his whole palm against it so the heat of his head would cool down against the colder skin. Adil noted the gesture by asking, “Have you been drinking?”

“… I had a couple shots of whiskey maybe an hour ago…”

Adil mentally smacked himself on the forehead, but he knew he could only blame himself for that one.

“Something other than alcohol,” he clarified, “preferably water.”

If Roland had replied yes, it would have been lavish, not only because it was not liquor, but also because clean water was scarce and time consuming to come by, so there was no surprise when Roland replied in the negative. The surprise turned out to be that it was Adil who pulled out a flask from his vest pocket in repost. He was not a drinker—he had grown up in a strict household and alcohol was haram—yet even still, the steel hip flask held twice as much as Roland’s six ounce one. Twisting its cap off, Adil passed it over to Roland, then in a dry voice said “it’s water” because Roland gave it a few suspicious looks and a sniff.

Roland took a couple of shallow sips, then screwed the cap back in place and gave it back.

“Let’s look in the meeting room again. The Mad Mart is over there too. Maybe they have aspirin for that headache,” Adil said while trying to get a hold Roland’s hand, which trembled on its own from nerves.

Roland let out a sigh mostly in hopes that it would steady himself because the repost would not be as much of a jab without composure.

“I don’t think I need my hand held, Adil. I can walk around just fine. I’m not blind, after all.”

“Hmph, don’t act like I didn’t watch you walk into the corner of your table. You’ll keep bumping into things that are conveniently as tall as your hip.”

Nothing was replied outright; Roland simply yielded by opening his hand so Adil did not have to force his welcome. Then, both of them stood there for a silent moment, adjusting and musing to themselves about how it felt kind of nice, neither of them knowing if it was mutual.

It existed that way for the time they spent traversing the streets of their underground city, keeping to the main roads because they were the most well lit areas. Adil did consider that there might have been a quicker direct way through side streets and back alleys, but shapes were easier to see and comprehend when there were extra street lamps and lighting fixtures. So he thought at least. Even though it would have been excusable, Adil spared Roland of any I-told-you-so banter when he knocked into a couple of things with his foot and hip. Luckily—or not so luckily, since their reign over the city was shrinking from advancing Karma occupation—Roland’s quarters were not far off from the Center, so most of their trip had been forgiving otherwise.

The sheer size of the Center gave it a tendency to swallow light if the fixtures were placed too far up or out—or if any decided to blow out altogether. Its ceiling reached high as if it wanted to reclaim the surface; lower levels could be seen by peering over the manmade gully that split the city square in two. There was a tall multipurpose building—notorious for being the Lokapala’s center of operations—dominating one side; athwart from it, imbedded into the building’s side, was a small arms shop.

Over the shop sign, the light assigned to the bullet icon sandwiched between “MAD” and “MART” had gone out, and numerous unopened wooden crates of various goods lined the open-faced storefront. Johnny, who usually hung around outside if he was not off being an entrepreneur, was nowhere in sight. On the other hand, Kathy, his wife, could be heard talking inside to Szestow, who was one of Roland’s men.

Roland started pressing and massaging his forehead again, but this time it was with the heel of his palm. Adil motioned him over to stop and sit on the stoop outside the tall building across the way while he stopped in at the Mad Mart in hopes of sparing him of dealing with any excess agitation. He even left his flask with him, however Roland was starting to crave a different kind of drink. An assortment of alcohol was simply up the steps and over in the war room after all. Roland refrained from partaking in his vice, except the longer and longer he sat there quietly, patiently waiting for Adil, the more and more appealing indulging in it became.

Pours from the bottles were known to make his problems go away, albeit only temporary, but slight relief and better-than-nothing was all he knew on how to heal. They had yet to fail before when things were too hard to handle, like the panic of sabotage and propaganda against himself that played in repetitive recordings of screw-ups and failures, shortcomings and disappointments.

He could have prevented having a handicapped future for himself. His mind reeled over it unforgivingly. Unable to see, sure to die from it—he could not stay on top of himself, lost the one aid he had and needed, and therefore a lesser man.

He could not look over himself let alone the Lokapala.

All of their lives were doomed and he led them there.

On the outside Roland was a bit vacant from the turmoil, staring at the ground which was unfocused from more reasons than one, and gave up; he picked himself up and started ascending the stoop stairs, not bothering to take Adil’s flask of water. At the top, Roland saw a figure that wore too much maroon-brown to not be Adil coming out of the Mad Mart from across the gully. The closer it moved towards Roland, the more details got lost in a Gaussian blur, so he had to wait to find out if it was, in fact, Adil, but more precisely, if he had gotten what he went for.

Before ascending the stairs, the figure bent downward and conjoined with the spot of metallic silver-grey Roland left behind on one of the steps, which became lost to a patch of maroon around the midsection of the torso shortly after.

“Hey, Roland. Close your eyes and hold out your hand.”

It was unmistakably Adil’s voice.

Roland simply stared at him for a moment, trying to assess what he was expecting to gain by him doing but to no avail, so he replied: “That’s rather childish, don’t you think?”

Adil let out a hefty sigh in response.

“Can you entertain me,” he retorted, tacking on a desperate, yet defeated, “please?” at the end.

A knot formed on the left side of Roland’s face and looked as if it was what made it go lopsided. After quietly contemplating to himself a short list of surprises Adil could have possibly had, Roland straightened his head and obeyed the request. Since nothing happened immediately afterward, he figured Adil was rummaging through one of his vest or pants pockets. Whatever it was that he fiddled with, it did not sound like a plastic medicine bottle grinding or popping open, or a paper box tearing apart to get at the tablets inside. Instead, it sounded like a box with rusty hinges that squeaked when opened.

Whatever Adil had planned for Roland, it took longer to prepare than even that allowance for he had waited some more still—but not by much. Roland was expecting something to be placed in his hand, but what he received was something plastic rubbing against the sides of his face over his cheekbones, then behind his ears, to which he took in a sharp breath of surprise and shot his eyes wide open.

Crisp and clear in Roland’s sight, Adil greeted him with a wide, yet soft, smile that made the lines around his eyes and mouth run deep with amusement. The warm greys of his eyes complimented the mien for they rested as if they too were smiling in contentment.

“Kathy was holding on to them,” Adil said, “Apparently, Szestow found them at the Cable. You’re lucky she had a spare case. Otherwise, they might have gotten broken.”

Hearing it helped Roland recall how he had spent some time at the Underwater Cable’s entrance. Calm, quiet, serene, a bit dirty and musty—no one was ever there except for routine maintenance or for occasional raids of the Karma City. It was a perfect place to write and to think, problem solve or wander through thought. But, even with the mystical qualities the setting had, it had not helped Roland any more in overcoming that one plot point, which he never fully fleshed out, for his novel. Having tried all his tricks—speaking it out loud, pacing, backtracking, even roleplaying—to no avail prior, Roland tried sleeping on it to solve his problems.

Roland filled in the gaps and lapses himself; enlightening Adil to the “why” and “how” by saying that, after the nap, he must have assumed his glasses were in one of his coat or cargo pockets for the return trip. Either that setup, or he had simply forgotten about them altogether. For the sake of his pride, he did not want to admit that option being a possibility to Adil, but he knew he would have to eventually because his declining recollection and memory was proving to be a problem.

Out of courtesy, when all was said and done, Adil offered his hand to Roland, still smiling, except this time the gesture was an error of not keeping holds over his emotions. Groaning and grumbling under his breath, the smile retreated and Adil averted his head and let his arm go limp, causing his hand to slip and return back to his side. Roland mimicked Adil by glancing off to the same spot in the distance just in case he was not accidentally missing something significant. Then, to Adil’s surprise, the same hand he had hoped to hold grazed over his own set of fingers also in hopes of being held. Roland’s index finger slowly stroked at the crease in between Adil’s set, wanting and waiting for acceptance that did not take long to come. Their fingers intertwined and locked into place by curling their fingers over each other’s knuckles.

Both of them had suddenly grown tired and turned their heads back towards each other. It caused Adil’s heart to skip a few beats, but that obscurity was probably due to not being able to keep count with how rapidly its pace was growing. Then, he went on a whim, acted on impulse, and crept in inches away from Roland’s face.

“Argh! Damn it…” Adil said a little too loudly for their closeness, and reared his head up and outward. It made Roland’s brow furrow and knot until he puzzled out what it possibly meant given the circumstances. But, once he did, Roland reassured Adil with a breathy “hold on” as he fiddled with his eyeglass frames with his free hand and took them off of his face.

“That’s what you were worried about, right?”

Adil sighed and nodded as affirmation. Then, with his thumb, Adil stroked at the skin he could reach on the back of Roland’s hand before making their separate spaces one whole with a gentle bent kiss.

All of it between before and then certainly had been mutual for the lull of their lips were suspended in time, neither of them wanting to pull away because it would stop their silent serenity. For when it ended, they feared it—and the sentiments it held—would dislocate and disappear with time to the point where they would wonder if any of it ever actually existed at all or if they both made it up because it was so rare. So as a final act, to seal the memento closed, Adil kissed Roland’s upper lip with a soft press.

“Thanks,” Adil said once their mouths broke away for good. After straightening himself out and retreating back, Adil shuffled around in his lower vest pocket and pulled out a small paper box that bore a colored print design.

“Got the aspirin too, if you still want it.”

“I think I’ll be fine now,” Roland replied. With a chuckle and a smile, he put on his glasses and added: “But, keep it just in case I can’t find the cloth to clean these with.”

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone was confused/curious: “Szestow” is pronounced as “sh-eh-stahw-v.”


End file.
